


Tripping Over Nothing

by UMsArchive



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-30 04:10:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10153364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UMsArchive/pseuds/UMsArchive
Summary: [SOULMATE AU] Every person is born with a tattoo that shows the words one hears from their soulmate in the moment they realize they love them.Victor's is 'Let's end this' - depressing in the least.





	

'Let's end this.'

 

Victor 's soulmark is depressing in the least. His soulmate is going to leave him the very moment he'll realise he's fallen irremediably in love. Or perhaps losing them in itself is supposed to be the wake up call for Victor, that the one he will be losing was his very own half. 

 

When he was younger, he has managed to not give the mark much of a thought. And it hasn't been too hard to. He's discovered skating and he loved the ice so dearly and the ice seemed to love him equally. And with so many people that admired him and looked up to him, it became almost easy to not be bothered about one person's rejection. 

 

By 16, still, he is already molding himself into someone one couldn't possibly not be endeared with. Someone who throws flowers, and words of encouragement, and promises. Someone one would want to keep if only Victor allows it. And Victor thinks the one person to leave him will be a fool. They'll realize it, too, and come back pleadingly when the time comes.

 

By 20, he is starting to realize the shallowness in the interest he has been seeding in others. He is starting to realize how he may have sabotaged himself. People see him as the perfection he has designed and nothing less would satisfy them. A wrong step, a moment of truth and they would know Victor Nikiforov was fallible and that they could have better. 

 

At 22, it dawns on him that his soulmate may take that path, too. That they will be just another gravitating towards his magnetic resonance, only to be disappointed. He leaves people before they could have the reasons to leave him. He doesn't want to know. He wins his first Grand Prix. More and more people admire him. Things are not as bad as he makes them to be, he guesses.

 

At 24, he's given up on dating. He channels on his skating only, puts in his heart and soul. The ice however doesn't seem to love him so unconditionally either. A small injury and everything becomes pain when he is on the rink. He is now faking his feelings to the one entity he has thought he could be himself to. And in the meantime it whispers to him: 'next time I won't be so forgiving; next time I may leave you, when you're no longer enough'. Victor fears for what will remain of him when the ice leaves him too. 

 

At 26, he wonders if his ending is coming, injuries or not. Younger figure skaters are catching up to him and he knows at some point he'll fall behind. He is very much aware that he's heavily depressed by now, but he doesn't let his winning smile falter. He can't afford giving reasons to be kept off the ice. 'Only one wrong step, Victor. Only one fall and you're done for'. He wins his 4th Grand Prix. 5 World Championships. 6 Europeans. 10 National golds, now. Still counting. Still dangerously nearing to a time when it all ends.

 

He's 27. The season has started again. He's watching  videos of the other competitors and he smiles dully when he notices one particular fan.

 

Yuuri Katsuki's skating style makes it obvious he has an inspiration he follows. Victor is touched. Normally, younger skaters who were inspired by him grow out of it. The fact that Yuuri still looks up to him is warming. But he also has a sense of dread. Yuuri's skating has a spark that Victor has been progressively losing. On the ice, he looks more like Victor than he himself does. He wonders whether, if Yuuri would see Victor was a falling star, he would still consider his inspiration worthy of keeping or he would move on, finally growing out of it.

 

Victor wins another gold. Yuuri falls hard. Victor quietly wonders if he had already failed Yuuri somehow. It's probably far-fetched, but Yuuri had managed to get a silver and a gold in the qualifiers, skating with a spirit not unlike Victor 's,  but, unlike his, still shining with hope. What had changed aside from Victor ' s presence. Whether by intimidation or disappointment, Victor felt as though his person played a role in Yuuri not being his inspired self on the ice.

 

***

“Let’s end this.”

 

Up until that moment, Victor has been sometimes smug, sometimes reconciled with the day he would hear those words. And right here, as he grasps too tightly to Yuuri, desperately not knowing what to do I or say to make him change his mind, it dawns on him that the right plan should've been to have prepared for this, that all of those years he should have gathered all the right moves to turn this all around instead of wallowing in self pity.

 

But how could he have expected someone like Yuuri? How could he have known what love was going to be when he was going to finally get it? How can he make Yuuri understand? How to tell him they are soulmates? How to tell Yuuri he is in love with him and should've known it way before he allowed this to happen?

 

***

Victor can see it in the free skate. He can’t possibly be imagining it. The fact that Yuuri is skating his love for Victor. And if that is the case, how can Yuuri not have figured it out yet, too? Or maybe he did. Maybe that was the final goodbye. A way to say ‘I love you but-’.

 

"I have to let you go now better than let you stick around until it's too late," is what Yuuri says again after the free skate.

 

"Too late for what? Is this still about my career? Yuuri- "

 

"No!" Yuuri whines, eyes on the floor, clasping his hands together.

 

And then Victor 's world freezes for a while as he realizes Yuuri is suddenly unbuckling his right skate, ripping off a bandaid Victor had never questioned before for always being at the back of Yuuri's foot - skaters are always filled with blisters and he judged that might be a particularly sensitive spot. 

 

'It's almost like a marriage proposal,' the naked skin reads. So then-

 

"Yuuri," Victor kneels down to face him, showing him what he has always feared to show anyone: 'Let's end this'. “You knew first. But you didn’t-”

 

“I knew it even before. And- I thought you knew it, too. But-"

 

"Yuuri, Yuuri, if ever I have been hesitant or vague about my feelings, it wasn't that I feared you being my soulmate - far from it - all I feared was hearing those words from you and what they implied.

 

"I'll be your rival, and your coach, and your soulmate, all at once. Don't underestimate me, Yuuri. Your soul mate is none other but  _ the _ Victor Nikiforov, remember?"

 

"But you don't have to do all that! Can't you see I am messing up your life with all the complications I bring in?"

 

Victor laughs, although he knows he shouldn't. He knows that Yuuri's heart is fragile and hesitant and that precious object being Victor 's  to carry is an honor his soul mate has yet to understand. "Yuuri, listen, I can see myself doing this and more by your side, but I can see myself managing none without you. Can't you see it, that you are making me better, too? Can't you see that us being meant for each other is no exaggeration and definitely no mistake in the least?"

 

"I am scared and anxious for you," Yuuri reaffirmed.

 

"And I am blessed for it. But you've got to allow me to be anxious for you, too, now."

 

Yuuri still asks him now and then, if he doesn't regret it, if he's not doing too much, if Yuuri is a burden for him? But Yuuri is the only one that sees him tired in the evenings. That sees the circles under his eyes in the morning before he gets to cover them up. But he's worried for him in a way that's not pitying, nor disappointed. Yuuri grounds him and cares for him in ways that he's been too self centered to realize he needed before. He's been always worried his soulmate may expect things that he can't give. But Yuuri has been, too. And they both try their best. They both worry. But they both couldn't ask for more. Perhaps they were indeed made for each other.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I had this in my drafts for a while now. Not very happy with it. But I know I'm not going back on it either. So might as well post the thing as it is.


End file.
